this is happening because serato is writing the play count to the file. therefore windows thinks it's newly added as the file has a updated file date.

right ok. i got you. how do i stop this from happening?

You can't stop it. It's just the way that Serato implemented 'play count'. I can't stand it either.

that sucks. serato anyway you can fix this?

I'm pretty sure the official reply is "downgrade to a version before playcounts were enabled" from the last thing I read..

Is anyone actually benefiting from counting plays since July 2019 or has the whole feature been problematic with almost no relevant data to report since it was added?

What's problematic about it?

This is where people get into trouble about being taken seriously in their complaints because they become overly dramatic about it. The tag writing is more annoying and not useful because it's not historical data like most of us want. It runs just fine on even my 7+ year old MacBook Pro. You have some super granular OCD users that don't like the fact it modifies older files based on how they sort their library, this is like a 1% gripe and, yeah if you don't like that find a work around for your oddball ways.

You don't like it, fine? Stop framing it incorrectly and it goes a long way to getting others to support the option to turn it on and off.

Everything you listed, on top of all the other posts I've seen about people asking to turn it off (For whatever reason).. Doesn't really seem to solve any problems, yet appears to only be people commenting on how problematic it is.

Where are all the posts praising how awesome and useful it is? Few and far between.. if any!

I'm just trying to see the benefit for all the trouble it seems to have brought users in various ways.

it is very annoying and should be a option to turn it off or on. i downloaded almost 20 track and couldn't find them coz of all my old songs got played in serato and went to the top of my list.

Sort by date added.

this doesnt help...the recently played track always goes to the top, even if it was added months ago

anyone find a fix for this yet?

Here's another thread regarding this topic - serato.com

Hello,
maybe you could analyze your files with earlier version of Serato, and after that just lock your files in the finder. So Serato will not be able anymore to rewrite the file.
Cheers

shouldnt have updated im still rockin 2.05 on sierra

any luck on this fix?

just do what i said it will work follow the instructions it doesnt get any clearer

do what aligan said*